Literary notes about Embodied (AI summary)
The term "embodied" is employed in literature as a versatile means of bridging abstract ideas with tangible reality. It frequently conveys that an idea, quality, or phenomenon is not merely conceptual but is given form or substance—for instance, when scientific principles are rendered as concrete constructs [1] or when abstract social controls are personified through prevailing institutions [2]. At times it suggests that an individual or object encapsulates broader cultural, moral, or intellectual traits, as seen when a character or artifact comes to represent a collective ideal, like "the economic man" in political discourse [3] or the embodiment of profound personal or ethical values [4]. In narrative settings, the word enriches the text by animating ideas, inviting readers to perceive the physical or symbolic manifesting of lofty concepts, whether in the form of legal enactments, societal customs, or mythological figures.
- No one expects the young to make original discoveries of just the same facts and principles as are embodied in the sciences of nature and man.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey - When we think of social control, therefore, these are the images in which we see it embodied and these are the terms in which we seek to define it.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - [Pg 495] In classical political economy the single motive of human action was embodied in the abstraction "the economic man."
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - The ideas of others as embodied in language become substitutes for one's own ideas.
— from How We Think by John Dewey
